The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-10-14
Some Reasons for Eating Honey
ALLEN PRINGLE.

Why people should freely eat honey
can be put briefly In one sentence, to
wit: Because honey is wholesome,
palatable. and comparatively cheap
food. This fact in itself ought to be
sufficient to ensure its general use, and
no doubt it will when the fact is GEN
erallJ known.
Owing mainly, perhaps. to the fact
that honey yields such exquisite pleas
ure to the human palate it is, for the
most part, regarded as a mere luxury,
and its valuable qualities as food, and
even medicine, are generally overlook
ed. Corn meal porridge is a wholesome
and cheap food, but it is not sufficiently
palatable to catch many mouths water
ing fer it. There are many excellent
articles of diet that are quite neglected
simply because they do not commend
themselves to our perverted tastes,
everybody, however, admitting their
wholesomeness.
But, because honey is SO superlative-
y pleasant to all tastes-both normal
and abnormal-the hasty conclusion is
forthwith reached that it is merely a
luxury to please the palate, having no
special value as regular article of diet
This popular conception is very erron-
eous. and must be corrected before this
rich! product Of nature can take its
proper place on the tables of all classes
of people as common article of diet
True, occasionallya person is found
who cannot eat honey. 1t disagrees
with few, or, as they put it, 'acts
almost as poison to them. But this
fact no more proves that honey per Sc
is essentially injurious than the fact
that potatoes are essentially unwhole-
some. The fault is not in the honey
or potatoes, but in the subject himself
In some popularity of constitution, or
abnormal condition Of the. system may
always be found the true cause of the
difficulty.
The die,ic elements which honey
contains are quite indispensable to
6rst.rate health in IL is and more north
erly climates to all outside the
torrid zone. The carbo onaceous, no less
than the nitrogenous, elements of food
are required by the human system in
these zones; and as we go north from
the Tropic of Cancer, more imperatively
required than the latter. Now, as
honey furnishes these indispensable,
heat-produsing elements in greater
purity than almost every other article
of human diet, it therefore stands at
the very head of the carbonaceous
ingesta.
If the animal heat of the system is
produced and maintained by the com.
bustion in the blood of the oxygen of
the air taken in by the lupgs and GER
tain elements Of the food, as the most
eminent authorities maintain, then it is
absolutely certain that for six or eight
months of the year in this climate,
there is no more wholesome or neces-
sary food than pure honey. True, in
our ordinary dietary we can get the
necessary heat forming materials from
other sources, but we also get at the
same time from these other sources
disease producing impurities--fat pork
for instance, and other oleaginous sub.
stances so common on our tables. The
conclusion is. therefore, as plain as it is
logical, that during the seasons of
autumn, winter, and spring in these
latitudes, honey is the very best food of
its class which we can get. Let there
be less pork, butter, and the dirty, un.
wholesome syrups used in the families
of our land, and more honey, and the
certain result will be the greatly i'm.
proved health of the people. Sickness
and the common ailments of life will be
greatly diminished. Considering the
relative wholesomeness, purity, and
nutritive properties, pure extracted
honey is much cheaper as regular
article Of diet than pork or the average
quality Of market butter at the same
price.
In natures materia n.edica, honey
has also valuable properties as cura-
tive agent. In pulmonary complaints,
common colds, sore throats, and that
class of diseases, honey has frequently
proved most eficacious, Many instan-
ees are recorded of remarkable cures
by honey in such cases when other
medicaments had utterly failed. That
honey possesses restorative and remedial
properties Of an important character is
already we'll know by the bee keeping
denizens of country places, and their
neighbors, who frequently call upon
them for honey in cases of sore throat,
colds, Group, etc.; while the bee keeper
knows we'll that every druggist in
every country town, as we'll as in the
city, lays in a stock every year for med
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